


a series of questionable decisions

by elliptical



Series: the questionable chronicles [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (wrt ghb/psii), Dubious Consent, First Meetings, Mind Control, Multi, Origin Story, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Abuse, Slavery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6244333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a yellowblooded prison guard with a moirail in high places meets two heretics who are absolutely, unequivocally, going to die.</p><p>Or, the one where Psii meets Signless and Disciple, discovers a few new things about himself, and makes a life changing decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally going to be a oneshot but i know i'm never going to finish this if i don't post the first bit somewhere i can be shamed in public
> 
> this way of everyone meeting isn't canon across all my aus because i have like seventeen different headcanons for how everyone met each other. it is an idea i've been playing with, though

The newest prisoners in your cellblock are anomalies. Two of them, matesprits, tossed next to each other with a stone wall between them too thick to yell through. The walls themselves are bloodstained and painted, but neither of the trolls seem all that perturbed by the decor. The oliveblood paces around like a caged beast, agitated by the enclosure more than the gore, and the anonymous one...

He sits in silence in the middle of the floor, legs crossed, arms folded neatly in his lap, eyes closed. His lack of injuries is surprising in and of itself - usually trolls have cuts and bruises from running, broken bones from fighting back. Usually trolls are gaunt and hollowed-out or huge and scarred and angry, spitting bravado to hide how terrified they are.

But the expression on his face is serene. You watch him for the better part of two hours to see if he's putting on an act, rapping sharply on the door when it's time to give him his food. "Put your hands up."

He raises his hands above his head and doesn't move an inch. Neither he nor his matesprit have psychic powers that you know of, but that doesn't mean much. The prisoners in your cellblock are nearly always flight risks, which is why you get to deal with them. You've secured the appreciation of everyone who matters, so you get a hold of important cargo. People who managed to escape other prisons, people who have been on the run for so long they're experts at it, people who are ready and willing to kill to keep their freedom. You've been rushed by trolls with more distance and more unassuming posture before - you're easily underestimated, thanks to the scrawny pissblood stature - so you're very careful as you enter the cell.

"Stay where you are," you warn him. The mush on the tray in your hands looks like secretions from the inside of someone's throat. Doesn't taste much better. Livestock in pens closer to the surface tends to be fed better than the prisoners, or you.

He doesn't give you any trouble, allowing you to set the tray in his lap. The prisoners aren't allowed any sort of silverware, so he eats with his fingers, wrinkling his nose slightly at the taste.

"It's not much," you say. "But you do have to finish it."

"I know." He makes another face down at the food and then shakes his head, smiling. "Thank you for the meal, my friend."

You can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not, so you just wait for him to finish his food and take the tray, backing out of the room.

His matesprit is less gracious about the cuisine, though equally passive. Given her pacing, you're fully expecting her to try to make a break for it and grab the anonymous troll on the way, so you walk in tensed for a fight. She doesn't move toward you. She takes the tray with just as much tension as you and gags theatrically on every bite.

"Sorry. The food sucks." You rock back on your heels. "I won't hurt you as long as you don't do anything stupid, though. I'm just the guard."

"And you have to keep me alive?"

"Yeah," you say with a shrug.

"What's a skinny lowblood doing guarding a place like this?"

"That is a mystery you don't want to solve."

"Oh, right. 'I'm a big tough prison guard and I could kill you thirty-seven ways with my bare hands.'"

"Something like that."

"But you're not allowed to kill me."

You shrug again.

"Man of few words." She hands you the mostly-empty tray. "Here. I've had more than enough."

"The hungrier you get, the better it tastes." You back toward the door of the cell.

"You know from experience?"

Another shrug, and you leave her alone.

You discover the signless troll's blood color three nights later, when the medicullers come down to take samples from the prisoners. Things move slowly in the Court of Miracles, all the better to agitate the prisoners, which means that a stay in the prison blocks is more torture of waiting than straight-up torture. Still, you hold him down according to standard procedure, and he shows the first signs of discomfort you've seen since his imprisonment, as he shuts his eyes and turns his face away from the needle and hisses through his teeth.

You were beginning to think he wasn't capable of being uncomfortable, considering he never complains about the food and he never wakes screaming from day terrors and he meditates quietly in the middle of the cell when he's awake, but his muscles strain against the psionic bonds as the team takes the blood sample. You focus resolutely on the wall and hold him still, because he's just another troll, just an unfortunate meatsack, regardless of the freaky color and odd behavior.

The medical team has seen odder than an off-spectrum hue before, so they don't comment on it. They leave him be when they have his samples. His matesprit spits when they do hers, snarls and curses at you and at the team, but she's just as helpless against psionic strength as he was - as everyone is. You do your job and leave her alone.

When you return to bring her the evening meal, she's sitting down for the first time you can remember, her eyes closed. "He's dead, isn't he," she says, dully, without looking up.

"What?"

"My beloved. They took blood samples. He's dead."

You bite the inside of your cheek and taste blood, debating. Well. You haven't been forbidden from speaking the truth. "No," you say. "His fate is up to the high subjuggulators. So is yours. Ironically, this is one of the safest places he could be. Until they decide it isn't."

"And when does that happen, usually?"

"A few days, weeks, perigrees. It varies case to case."

"And does anyone leave here alive?"

"Finish your food."

"That's what I thought." She pushes the tray at you. "I'm not hungry."

You nudge it back at her. "Please eat. I'm just trying to do my job."

"I'm not hungry."

"Please."

She glares at you for a few seconds and then shovels the mush into her mouth, swallowing it as quickly as possible and kicking the empty tray at you.

"Thank you," you say quietly.

\---

"What's your story?" the mutant asks, pushing his food around the edges of the tray.

You shrug.

He smiles. "No, really, I've been starved for new stories lately. The boredom is killing me. What are you doing here?"

"Guarding your cell."

"And how did you come to guard cells?"

"By doing what I'm told."

His smile falters. "You guard yourself just as closely as these cells, my friend."

"We aren't friends."

"You're kinder than the other guards."

"I'm not kind. I do my job."

"You also don't appear to take pleasure in your job."

"Eat your food."

He pops a fingerful of sludge in his mouth. "You're the only guard I've met with a property tag."

Your ears flatten. " _Eat your food._ "

He looks up from the tray, his brows drawn together, face the picture of concern. He's a liar. Trying to get something from you, trying to get a hold of his matesprit, trying to...

"I didn't mean to offend you," he says softly. "I'm sorry. Are they hurting you?"

"No. I'm fine. I'm just doing my fucking job."

"Are you hungry?" He nudges the tray toward you. "You might need this more than me."

"What is your fucking problem?"

"My problem? You mean beyond being trapped here?"

"You have no right to make assumptions about me. Just because I have a property tag doesn't make me a common gutter rat."

"No. But it does make you property, which means that regardless of whether or not you enjoy your job - which you don't seem to - your consent to be here is compromised."

"Stop talking and eat your food."

"I was just wondering. A lot of trolls are victims of this cult. Even ones who may not appear to be on the surface."

"I'm not a victim!" you snap, and bite your tongue to keep yourself from taking more bait. "I'm a warrior. You don't know anything about me. Stop assuming you do."

"Okay," he says. "I'm sorry."

You hover in awkward silence as he finishes his food, and when you take the tray back you resolve not to speak to him for a few days. Silence grates on a troll, particularly trolls who seem to thrive on the misfortune of other people. No - not misfortune, fuck. The stories of other people. Whatever misguided conclusions they've drawn about other people.

His matesprit is easier to talk to. As time passes, she gets bored with her sullenness and peppers you with renewed questions instead. Where are you, what's going to happen to them, when will they be properly interrogated, when will they be executed. She's much more interested in concrete facts than in... whatever the fuck the mutant was trying to pull out of you. Concrete facts you can give. The information will only help her if she gets out of the cellblock, which she won't. You've got too much riding on doing your job right.

"Okay, so I have a question for you," you tell her.

Her guard goes up almost immediately. "What."

"What makes you two so high risk? Neither of you has jumped me yet."

"We're high risk?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm." She tilts her head, appearing to consider the question, like it's never been posed before. "I'm secretly the most powerful psychic alive. I'm just biding my time because I like damp-ass cells and the smell of old blood."

"Okay, but really."

"Sign talks his way out of trouble."

You snort. "I find that hard to believe."

"He hasn't preached at you yet?"

You glance at the door of the cell. "Oh, _that's_ what he was doing when he was being an asshole?"

She laughs, so at odds with her earlier defensiveness that it throws you off. "Take it up with him."

\---

"So," you tell the mutant when you bring him his evening meal, "you're a _preacher._ "

"They didn't tell you that?"

"My job is just to keep you in your cells. The reason you're here isn't relevant. But heresy, really? How fucking stupid are you?"

"You sound awfully defensive." He holds his hands out for the tray.

"Defensive," you repeat, handing it over.

"Taunting people seems more common with blueblood guards. And even then, only when they're tired and bored. For someone so invested in 'doing your job', you sure do seem insulted by this."

"Yeah. Stupid people offend me on a base level."

"Would you like to sit down?"

"No."

"You seem upset."

"I'm not upset, I'm fucking insulted. You come in here talking shit about my religion because you think somehow I've been victimized?"

He sighs, but he sounds more sad than exasperated. "I don't understand how you can be so loyal to a belief system that depends on destroying you."

"Your matesprit told me about how you escape prisons. How you whore yourself so hard at the guards that they pity you and let you go. It's not going to work on me."

"Oh. You think I'm using you." He frowns, a distressed little crease appearing between his eyebrows. "I'm not. I mean, I won't lie, it would be excellent if you let us out of here. But I don't expect you to. I'm just concerned about you."

" _Fuck you._ Just because I'm tagged doesn't mean my loyalty is compromised."

"I believe you." He pushes the partially-empty tray away and folds his hands in his lap. "A property-tagged yellowblood doesn't guard the same cells as bluebloods without a reason. But whatever happened to you to make you like this should not have happened, and I'm sorry."

Your chest hurts with something that burns like rage and stings like pity. "To make me like this? Like what. Not prone to buying into your bullshit?"

"Angry and defensive and volatile." He's looking at you with an intensity that makes you feel picked-apart, dissected under a microscope. "It's painfully obvious that your masters hurt you. Why do you stay? You're a psionic. Probably a powerful one, more than capable of leaving this place."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Then tell me." His eyes narrow and the gaze's intensity strengthens, like he's trying to peel you apart with nonexistent psionics. "What do I not know about you?"

You're still hurting with the anger-pity bile, and he's still staring at you, and you could end this interaction right now by leaving the cell until he finishes his food, but that would be giving him the last word. And your hands are itching and your throat clicks and before you can stop yourself, you shove him up against the wall.

You lock him in tight bands of red and blue, careful not to burn or leave marks. He's afraid anyway, despite himself, because objectively he knows you can't hurt him but every instinct in a troll screams to get away from the freaky pissbloods who flash red and blue, because your species at least evolved to get the fuck away from the worst dangers and...

"I'll hazard a guess, _heretic_ , that you don't know much about the goings-on in the Court. So let me tell you. Clowns like to be entertained and ritual slaughter is so much fun, but it also gets so boring after a time, because why grind bones into dust of those who can't fight back? Eventually all the screams sound the same and the bodies are only good for paint. You get your entertainment from other places. Gutterbloods are only good for paint but they don't know that, do they? They want to live so badly, don't they?"

The mutant's eyes widen, red red red, open the veins and pour it out, and a swooping part of you realizes this isn't you at all, he's down here, he's fucking with your pan. The rest of you feels too good spilling your poison to stop.

"So what happens if the gutterbloods kill each other instead? What happens if you dump a few dozen of them together and say that the last one standing gets to live another night? What happens then?"

The mutant chokes on air. "You--"

"I'm a powerful psionic. I'm their reigning motherfucking champion, and when the trials are over this sweep and they have a new champion, I'll fight them, and kill them, and get to live another sweep. I don't know how many fucking people I've killed. I don't care. I guard your prison cells because it's easy and this is as good a place as any to store me before they take me out for a last night of entertainment."

You're bearing down on him, your ears pressed flat against your head, fueled by anger and murder-rage that feels good, isn't your own. "So, pretty mutant, tell me about how concerned you are for me, how fucking pale, how worried you are about my _compromised consent._ Is there anything else you want to hear? How it feels to separate a limb from its joint? How the fibers of the muscle part and the bones crack?"

You expect him to wilt. At the very most, you expect him to try to present reason like you're not in a position to crush all of his internal organs, considering only someone with a broken fear sense stays so calm in a place like this.

You do not expect him to say, "Mituna."

The Grand Highblood's hold on your mind pops like a soap bubble. You stumble back, wholly your own again, dizzy and light and sick. " _What?_ "

The mutant drops to his knees, coughing. "Mituna," he says. "I remember you."

"What the fuck!"

"We were friends." He reaches toward you, coughing again. "I know you, I remember you, I -- we're _friends_ , give me a moment to catch my breath, I swear I can explain."

You don't give him a moment. You back out of the cell before the fog can descend, slamming the door shut and locking it, leaving the tray of food in there with him. All against protocol, but your blood sings and you don't care, you don't -

You break into a sprint and leave your shift early, damn the prisoners, they'll stay sequestered in their cells for one fucking hour, and find your moirail laughing like you're the punchline to the funniest joke he's ever heard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yikes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's shorter than the first. the chapter cutoffs are defined by beginning, middle, and end. so. here's the middle of the story, and the next chapter will be the end (obviously).

Your relationship with the Grand Highblood is... complicated.

Except it's not, not really. What is complicated is a pissblood managing to worm his way into the quadrant of the second-or-third (depending on who you ask) most powerful person in the Empire. It wouldn't have happened if not for his will. But he's fascinated by a little sparkbug like you, who can turn into a cross between a nuclear meltdown and wild animal when set loose in the arena, and be perfectly fine everywhere else.

You're good at compartmentalizing, to say the least. And it helps to have his powers in your mind, smoothing down your ragged edges. He won't let you lose control outside a setting where you need to (unless it's funny), and he won't let anyone else hurt you (unless he's pissed). It's a perfectly fair arrangement most of the time, much better than being one of the unfortunate lowbloods to meet the wrong end of his clubs, and you appreciate it.

Except during moments like this. You stride forward and shove him squarely in the chest. He's solid enough that it hurts your arms more than him.

"Fuck you," you snap.

"Aw, c'mon, brother. Lighten up a little. Wasn't gonna let you murder the freakblood or nothin'."

"Fuck you, you gave him my hatchname."

"Naw, brother, ain't none of that on me. He dragged that shit up himself."

"Bullshit."

"Would be a fuckin' funny joke if I had, but that's all on him. I don't lie to you."

"Fuck you! Stop digging into my head!"

He brings a hand up and cups your cheek, rubbing his thumb in a gentle circle. Your eyelids flutter and a fair amount of the anger dissipates just from that. Psychic influence? Maybe, but it's also him. Just him, his existence. His hold on you is impossible to break, a culmination of every time he held and covered and shushed you after you went feral, every time he laid you down in his pile and settled you and made all the voices quiet. He's intoxicating. He's safe (except when he isn't), and you're addicted to feeling safe.

"Easy, motherfucker," he murmurs, his voice a low croon that makes you want to melt into the floor. "Bring it down a notch."

"I - hnn. I." You're having trouble holding onto your anger. "You can't be - in my pan - while I'm working."

"No? Who's to say, motherfucker? I got the run of the place." He dips his fingers under your jaw, stroking your neck, and you chirp despite yourself. "There, see. I ain't even damaged you, my softboned invertebrother. Look at that. All pretty and held together just fine, and you ain't any worse for wear."

You give in and slump against him, eyes falling fully closed. "The mutant prisoner will be afraid of me now."

He curls both arms around your waist, and you are so much shorter and thinner than him, it's like being completely folded up in cool troll. "Why is that a motherfucking problem?"

He already knows, but he's going to make you say it. You choose not to drag it out. "I like him."

"You like him." He repeats your words with such sardonic disdain that you feel like a scolded child. "Look up at me, motherfucker."

"I don't want to. You're going to yell."

"Nah. Ain't gonna yell at you none. Just gotta set your head a little straight."

You grimace, but he kneels in front of you and puts both hands on your face like he wants to swallow you whole, holding your head steady. "You got such pretty eyes," he says with all the soft gentleness in the world. "Can't help but think what it'd be like to pull 'em out, settled like trophies at my coonside. But they won't glow so well unattached to your pan, huh?"

It's not the first time he's voiced his fascination. "You can take my eyes if you want," you say, like you do every time. "I don't use them for anything except seeing."

He smiles, pleased, like he does every time. "Nah, think I'll leave 'em in," he says, like he does every time, because he is your moirail and he wants to leave you intact (until the night he won't). This is his devotion to you. He leaves your body sewed together even when his instincts itch otherwise. This is what sets you apart, makes you...

"Your mind's drifting away from me, motherfucker. Focus." The threads of his influence are indistinguishable from your own thoughts, guiding you back to his gaze. "Pitiful, pathetic boy. You don't want the heretic to scream when he sees you coming?"

"Am I not allowed to have some people who aren't scared of me?"

"Not when their opinion is built on lies. You ain't said nothing to the mutant what wasn't true. If he'd seen you in the arena he'd be dead already, or horror-struck if he was off the sidelines. You can't be hiding your true nature from people, motherfucker. Otherwise they get liking a fake you. And monsters like you and me, we got our options limited in who can see us without screaming."

"I - I'm not - the arena is so I don't _die_."

"You can tell yourself that as much as up and makes you comfy," he says, still just as gentle as before, "but you know you're lying. Ain't no one who goes as animal as you. You got the darkness in you, brother, and you'd have it in you whether or not I'd dumped your ass in with the others. Who ever heard of a pissblood as kills his own?"

"But - but you make me, I..."

"I ain't made you do nothing. You fight and fight and bleed and bleed until you can't fight no more. The ones built for passivity, those are the ones that crack and lay down. You always had your choice and you choose yourself. You got the instinct for survival at all costs. You choose to sacrifice hundreds to save your own skin. You are the most beautiful, selfish motherfucker on the planet." He runs his thumb over your bottom lip. "Me a monster by destiny, and you a monster by choice. If your pretty heretic put us side by side, who do you think he'd damn?"

You whine, soft and low. "Both of us."

His grin splits his face, stretches his paint. "There you go. That's why we're serendipity, brother."

"Fuck. Fine. So I can't be friendly to the prisoners and no one else will look at me. Who the fuck am I supposed to talk to, then?"

The smile widens, showing teeth. "Me. And only motherfucking me. You're right, brother. Ain't no one else who'll ever see what the Messiahs blessed you with and not want to run. You dug your pit. At least it's full of blessings."

He must catch the edge of your misery, because he settles crosslegged on the floor and tugs you into his lap. "Easy, motherfucker," he murmurs, wrapped around you like a blanket. "Ain't no need to be so sad. You walk a higher path. The high paths are the loneliest, but most rewarding when the end comes. You got me, heart and soul. You don't need nobody else."

He presses little kisses to your horns, nosing against your hair. You relax, let him soothe you, let him comb the edges again. Let him pour the scriptures through your pan like a coonside story, warm and sleepy and safe.

"There is one more thing," he says, once you're purring bonelessly against him.

"Mmm?"

"Kill the heretics."

Your breath catches. "You want me to..."

"The mutant and the olive. Don't play dumb. Leave the mutant's body intact, I want his shade for my walls later. I don't care how you tear the kittybitch apart. You ain't even got to take them from their cells."

"I don't have to kill outside the arena. That's how we - that's how you - I don't have to kill outside the arena, don't _make me_."

"Blood beats the same in and out of an arena, brother. You may as well learn to spill it proper now. Shouldn't be a problem, considering he'll be all scared of you anyway, smash your budding _relationship_ to bits."

You flinch at the sneer.

"Huh." He kisses your horns again, all four, little pecks. "Never thought I'd be the jealous type."

"It's not about _them_ , it's that I don't want to kill like this! I'm free for the sweep! That's our deal, that's how this fucking works!"

"I don't remember signing any such contract."

"Don't make me."

"I ain't gonna make you." He pats your head. "Gonna go up aboveground while you get your hands dirty just to make sure I don't accidentally influence shit. Gotta break in your own all by your lonesome."

Your voice cracks, and either his usual tactics aren't working or he's letting you be upset. "I don't want to."

"Oh, motherfucker." There's something so sad in his tone, so pitying. "When has it ever mattered what you want?"

Yeah. That's fair.

Your mouth twists. You look down at your lap, brow furrowing, but this is no different from the times you've walked into the arena because you had to. You'll either complete your task, or there will be pain and then you'll complete your task. It's not a matter of choosing to stand down. It's a matter of choosing the least unhappy option, which for you means the option that doesn't hurt.

"I'm gonna be upset," you say. "When it's over. When I - I know you think, think it's ridiculous, because I'm a killer no matter what, I know that I know but I'm supposed to be _safe_..."

"You are safe. You ain't the one getting killed."

"Will you hold me? Once it's done? Will you find it in you to not be a raging dickface for one fucking day and just hold me?"

His answer comes faster than you expected. "Of course."

"Then. I." 

You don't have a choice, not really. Just the illusion of one desperately grasped between your fingers.

_Your consent to be here is compromised._

An uneasy shiver ripples down your spine. "I'll do it," you say.

He kisses your forehead. "Good boy."

\---

You reenter the mutant's cell and close the door. He doesn't attack you with the tray, despite knowing what you are. He's - the idiot is meditating again, perfectly calm in the center of the floor, appearing completely disinterested in your presence.

Your hands don't shake. Your jaw is set firm. You take a step forward and envision it, his neck snapped to the side, quick and painless, more than he'll ever get in the Court. The steps to his matesprit's cell, the equal quickness of her death. Neither of them tortured. Mercy. That's good, it'll be mercy, they can skip their trials and head straight for the inevitable sentence. You're not an executioner, you're a savior.

You scan your pan for any sign of your moirail's influence, but you don't find anything definitive. What you do find is a nagging question.

The preacher looks up and - and smiles at you, genuine, tilting his head to the side. "Mituna. I was so worried you weren't going to come back."

Mituna. Your hatch name again, spilled easy from his lips, and your moirail above ground where he can't plant the seed.

You swallow. One question and you kill him. You shake off the feeling that this is a terrible idea, breathe out slow.

"How do you know my name?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand we have the end  
> i wanted di to feature more in this story than she did, but if i didn't conclude it here then this would without a doubt turn into another monster of a fic  
> so i apologize for that.  
> with that said there's a pretty good chance of a sequel at some point in the future bc i'm a sucker for these nerds

The preacher holds his hands out to you. "Come sit. It's sort of a long story."

"Give me the short version."

"You have time left on your shift, don't you? You'll be bored just standing in the hallway."

You lean against the door. " _Give me the short version._ "

"Mmm. Okay. The short version is that I... guess I am psychic, up to a point? But not in any way that I've ever heard of before."

The relief is overwhelming. You two aren't friends. There's no destiny here. He's a mind reader and you can kill him with, well, fewer qualms than you had already. You can kill him and then kill the olive and then finish your shift early and sleep and sleep and sleep, wrapped up in the cool comfort of your moirail's embrace.

"So you plucked my name from the front of my pan. Cute parlor trick."

"No. Not quite." He runs his tongue over his lips. "I have visions."

That gives you pause. Visions aren't unheard of for a psychic - you have them yourself - but yours are usually of the blood and gore variety. People killed in the throne room, more often than not. And the voices of your victims, which you have the pleasure of hearing just before you tear them apart, and the constant cool assurance that you'll live, because you can't hear your own death cries -

The pause lengthens. You... can't hear his voice. Or his matesprit's.

Ah, for the love of fuck.

If you're going to spare them there'd better be a really good fucking reason. "You have visions," you repeat, one eyebrow arched.

He nods. "Not of this world, though. Of... I'm not sure if I'd call it a past life or a parallel universe. I don't know which category it fits into, or how that world changed from this one. But it's peaceful there. The hemospectrum is all but irrelevant - still constructed, but far differently from ours. Highbloods use their resources to help lowbloods and the Empress defines culling..."

"I asked for the short version of the story," you interrupt. "How do you know my name."

"We're friends, in the other world. I know that sounds completely fucking batshit, okay, I know. We're maybe nine sweeps old over there, in some of the memories you're younger. Obviously you're older here, so I wasn't sure, but when you pinned me I - I could tell."

"I spent a lot of time pinning you to things in the other world, did I," you deadpan.

The tips of his ears darken. "No, it wasn't - it was - the way your face twisted, I knew. I knew. I know what you look like upset."

Yeah, he pulled your name out of your pan and he's spinning the rest to sound interesting. If you kill him really fast, he won't make a sound. He won't have time to know what's happening. That must be why you can't hear him.

"I know it sounds crazy, okay, I know you have no reason to believe me but I _promise_ you we're friends. Or we have been in the past. I don't know why I've met you but there has to be a reason - there's always a reason, I've only ever met two of my past life friends and one raised me and the other is in the cell beside me. My family. All I have. And the visions, my visions, I know they're real because the people in them are real. Alternia is a peaceful society in one world. It can be peaceful here too."

"You are completely fucked in the pan."

He smiles. Something in the grin makes you ache, because he smiles like he's in on the joke, like he doesn't fucking care. "I know."

"There's a chance you're making everything up, in which case you're actually insane, or you believe everything you're saying, in which case you're still actually insane. Oh."

"Is it really so crazy to believe we're meant for more than this? That trolls are made for more than mindless slaughter?"

He's not afraid of you. He doesn't know. He doesn't understand what you're here to do, even after spitting gory truths at him and acting like a feral troll. It's like he's forgotten the incident took place at all, wiped it clean from his mind, forgiven all. He doesn't know.

If you don't kill him, someone else will. Someone who will make it hurt. If you don't kill him, if you let him wander back into the world bright-eyed and crying heresy, it will only be a matter of time. They'll tear him to pieces, him and his matesprit, her hanging onto his words like they're a lifeline instead of a noose. You have to do it. It's mercy.

You have to do it.

You didn't have a choice from the start, and you shouldn't have let him speak, but you have to do it. One step forward, one snapped bone, move, move, move, move, why can't you fucking move

"Mituna," the preacher says, sharper. "What's wrong?"

_don't i don't want to and all the dead screaming for mercy and the blood and their eyes their eyes how they look see you coming try to beg cry for help don't i don't want to you said not here you said not safe said rest easy rest easy who needs to be this killer one night saint the next come wash off the blood come sleep in my arms i don't want to i don't_

The part of your mind which is not contributing to your hyperventilation registers that you're having a panic attack. You have never had a panic attack during a guard shift, and certainly not in a cell. But it's not the preacher you're concerned about. You like him, sure. You like the oliveblood, sure. Their deaths are unfortunate, sure.

You don't  
don't  
like  
ki ll i n g.

_i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry all the dead all the eyes the blood the ash choking on gore smell piss fear tears they want to live wanted to live i'm sorry i didn't mean to i just wanted to get out i wanted to go home i'm sorry i'm sorry not the arena i can't no more not again i'm tired i want to go home i want to go home i want to go home_

This - this is your undoing. You don't think about it. Your arena self and your outside self are separate. The killing doesn't touch you here, and there's no room for guilt when you're in the thick of things, and when dark thoughts creep up your moirail is always there to cast them away.

You need  
need  
need your moirail.

If you concentrate very hard, you can leave the cell and lock the door behind you. You can command your feet to carry you until you find him, damn the panicked breaths, damn the tears streaking your cheeks. You can collapse onto him and shake apart and beg.

...he won't hold you.

You know he won't hold you, because he never does when you disappoint him. At best he will leave you sobbing in the dirt and at worst he'll decide now is a good time to reteach a few hard-learned lessons. But he - he - he promised to hold you, once you got it done, you just have to

just have to

kill, step to the other cell, kill

lock the door

call for a medic

because your legs have mysteriously stopped working.

You're on the floor. You can't quite remember how you got here. It occurs to you that the prisoner could probably steal your keys and run, but there's warm pressure on your hand and through a blurred haze of tears you find him. He's talking, soft, but your ears are too busy ringing to take anything in.

"I'm very sorry," you think you say. "I never wanted to hurt anyone."

"I know. I know, I know, I know you didn't. Shh. I wasn't talking about you specifically, I was talking about our people at large, I'm sorry."

You blink, disoriented, before you realize he thinks _he's_ the one who upset you. The thought would be laughable if you could breathe.

"Does it make it better or worse if they know you're sorry? Is it better to hate the executioner?" You search his face, squeze his fingers.

"I don't know."

"I am, though. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. I'm so sorry."

"I believe you. I know."

"You don't, though." You reach for his face with your free hand, imploring him to understand, praying that he doesn't. "I'm so sorry."

His eyes widen.

You inhale, shaky breath, and - 

\- and find his throat, and -

\- and feel the pressure and -

\- and he says, "I forgive you."

The hold breaks. Your psionics dissipate, just as shaky as the rest of you. You take the first deep breath you have since you entered the cell.

"What?"

"Oh, Mituna." Any rational person would have broken your neck and stolen your keys and sprinted away. You've certainly been incapacitated for long enough. But the preacher just takes both of your hands and folds them in his. "This world has broken you so badly. You're so, so afraid of being hurt. You'll do anything to make sure that the lash doesn't strike your own back. How can I fault you that?"

He sounds an awful lot like he's going to cry too. "I'm so sorry, Mituna. I know you can't see how badly you've been twisted. I know you need to survive. I am so sorry you're in so much pain."

You can't think of an appropriate response to that. You wail at the ceiling instead, a grub grieving their lusus, a child scared to sleep.

"You were ordered to kill me, weren't you?"

You nod.

"And you don't want to. Of course you don't want to. What sick fuck plays these kinds of games with people?"

"Clowns get bored easy."

"That's no fucking excuse. Mituna. Mituna, look at me."

You flick your gaze to his face. He's all set jaw and righteous fury, how the Highblood gets when a heretic manages to worm under his skin, and the expression is so strange on his soft face it confuses you.

"You don't have to kill me," he says.

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't. You didn't have a choice when you killed other trolls for clown sport. That was kill or be killed. You were just trying to survive. But this is not kill-or-be-killed. You have other options, do you understand that?"

"Well, unfortunately, you see, my moirail sometimes has a short temper, and" - your voice chokes off with a hysterical giggle, fresh tears spilling over your cheeks - "and as you have likely noticed, I am rather in need of my moirail right now, so I am just going to do as I'm told and then I will go lay on him and calm down and everything will be fine."

A pause. "Did your moirail order you to kill me?"

"And your matesprit, yes. Please let me do my job."

"I haven't stopped you from doing anything. You're the one who hasn't yet, because you don't want to kill me." He finally lets go of your hands, pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "He's abusing you, Mituna."

You shake your head. "No, no, you've got it turned around in your head. This isn't - you know what? I don't have to explain it to you. He _helps me._ "

"Helps you out of situations he creates?" the preacher asks, with the gentleness of someone pushing on a tender wound to gauge the pain. "Makes you do things you don't want to so that you're robbed of agency, and then comforts you when you get upset to prove he'll always be there for you? That's abuse."

"No, you don't understand, it's..." You know he's wrong, but you're so turned around by the breakdown that you can't parse why. "It's - fuck, okay, look at it this way. There are lots of lowbloods here. Most are basically livestock offered up for slaughter. Even the ones with roles to play don't live that long, and the ones who do live a long time don't have highblood favor. My life here is _good_."

"For an Alternian lowblood being kept prisoner in the Court of Miracles," the preacher says. "That's a fairly narrow scope."

"I don't need to justify myself to you."

"Are you happy here?"

You swallow. "I'm protected. I'm safe. I'm alive. Better than a lot of lowbloods get."

"Have you been here your whole life?"

"I. Since I was four."

His mouth twists. "They put a four-sweep-old in a bloodbath arena?"

"No, no, I - I was with the other slaves then. The arena was when I was six."

"Did you have to kill your friends?"

The question is a knife in your ribs. You look away.

"Mituna. Oh, Mituna." He reaches up like he wants to touch your cheek, pauses, thinks better of it. A few translucent red tears spill over his bottom lashes, and his smile looks like it's yanked by puppet strings. "You don't even know, do you? You don't even know how good life gets outside of this fucking place."

"Lowblood lives aren't worth anything."

"You don't know. Oh god, oh god, you don't even know, you don't - holy fuck, no wonder I found you."

"Excuse me?"

His posture changes, straightens. He grabs for your hands with a renewed fervor, his eyes sparking up, all fire and passion and excitement. "You aren't supposed to kill me! Don't you see that?"

"I really do not."

"Your moirail makes you miserable just to make you feel better. You're not happy here but you're so dependent on him you've never thought about leaving - come with us. Me and Meulin, you can get us out of here and come with us, the three of us together. She'll adore you, I know she will if she doesn't already, let me - let me show you. Let me show you my Alternia. It's better than this one, Mituna, I swear. The world is so fucking beautiful if only you know where to look."

You - oh. You want that so badly you think you might throw up. The thought creeps unbidden through your head, sometimes, but you always stuff it down before the Highblood has a chance to see. What would happen if you walked out and kept walking and never looked back. What would happen if you never stepped into the arena again. What would happen if you hid far away and slept when you wanted and ate real food and breathed.

...What a mess you'd be without him there to smooth your edges.

"I can't," you tell the preacher. "I'm sorry. I need him."

"But you wouldn't need him if you had other people, would you? If you had me and Meulin? My mother? All the other trolls we speak to? There are so many, Mituna, you don't know, the varied lives people lead and the stories they tell and the comforts they offer - you don't know. Oh, God, I want to show you so badly, but I can't get out of here unless you help. Please. Come with us. You want to be free, don't you?"

You stare at the floor. "Freedom is an incorrect concept."

He laughs, but the sound is more incredulous than malicious. "That's the biggest heap of bullshit I've ever heard. You want to be free, I know you do because everyone does. Maybe you've fantasized about taking off that tag, maybe you haven't, but I know you want to leave this place and I know you want to find happiness and I know you want to cast off the misery and the suffering and the fear. I _know_ you do. You're so unhappy, Mituna, you're so fucking unhappy here, you're weighed down by all the things you can't change and you're just trying to survive night to night. You don't know. This isn't what life is. This isn't living. You've never lived before, have you? Oh, there's so much. I can't wait to show you."

The words spill out of him like he's not thinking, like he means every single one of them, like he knows without a shadow of a doubt that you'll come. You either kill him and the olive here, or you... you...

He could be lying. She warned you about this, didn't she, that he wiggles his way out of prison by -

And if you take them out of their cells and runrunrun away, away from the city and the blood and the terror, and they drop you in a gutter somewhere and laugh and laugh and laugh, you'll be on your own and defenseless and -

\- and you'll be breathing fresh air.

"Help us," the preacher says, his hands clasped like you're his last prayer. "Please. This doesn't have to end here. This can be a new beginning for all of us. Your beginning."

You bite your lip.

Then you reach up and pull firmly on your slave tag, concentrating to cut through the connecting ring. You saw through the fine metal with your psionics, rip it away from your ear, drop it on the ground with a clatter that rings like finality.

"Okay."


End file.
